Author: KnowledgeHippo

For the fertility patients whose embryos were destroyed at an Alabama clinic, the conditions must have been shocking. Somehow, a patient at the hospital that housed the clinic had wandered into a warehouse, pulled the embryos from a tank of liquid nitrogen, and then dumped them on the floor—probably because the tank was kept at minus 360 degrees.The strange episode was the focus of lawsuits filed by three families that eventually reached the Alabama Supreme Court. On Friday, a panel of judges ruled that embryos destroyed at the clinic should be considered children under state law, a decision that shocked…

Ask any frequent traveler their rules for a trip and you’ll likely hear the same advice: Never check a bag. Hand luggage only. But fitting everything you need, especially for a longer stay, into a small suitcase and a bag or backpack requires some ingenuity: The maximum dimensions for luggage that go in most bins are 22 by 14 by 9 inches, and although the most domestic flights don’t have—or at least don’t enforce—weight limits, some international and transpacific flights do (some Delta flights to Asia, for example, have a 22-pound limit, while Hawaiian Airlines’ maximum is 25 pounds ).…

Americans are deeply divided over whether gender identity should be taught in school, according to two polls released this week that underscored the extent of the divide on one of the most controversial issues in education.Many groups, including Democrats, teachers and teenagers, are divided over whether schools should teach about gender identity — a person’s internal sense of gender and whether it aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth , according to a survey by researchers at the University of Southern California and a separate survey by the Pew Research Center.But on issues of race, another issue that…

France is entering a period of austerity as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, economic slowdowns in Germany and China and record high interest rates weigh on growth more than expected.The French will face 10 billion euros ($10.8 billion) in cuts to government spending, on issues such as environmental subsidies and education, the government announced Thursday, on top of 16 billion euros in cuts announced a few months ago. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Monday revised up his forecast for economic growth this year to 1 percent, from 1.4 percent at the end of last year.”Lower growth means lower…

Hydeia Broadbent, who was born with HIV and as a child became a leading voice in HIV and AIDS awareness, died Tuesday at her home in Las Vegas. He was 39.Her father, Lauren Broadband, confirmed the death. He did not state the reason.Ms. Broadbent was 6 years old when she began recounting her struggle with HIV on television, aiming to educate the public amid an epidemic that caused panic and stigma. Even as new treatments dramatically improved long-term outcomes for people with HIV, he stressed there was no cure and the infection was a life sentence, and urged people to…

Once you wrote to the scammers, they had your email address and used it — sending you an email dressed up to look like an official Booking.com message and from an address @confirmations-booking.com, which can look like a legitimate address if and the company says all its emails end in @booking.com.Reading copies of the emails you forwarded to me, the broken English is also suspicious (“Your booking of a two-bedroom apartment with a view must be paid in full”), as are some of the account details with the Spanish bank BBVA. “Nyholm Peik”, has no online presence that I could…

A song called “October Rain” might just be a ballad about dreary fall weather. But in the charged atmosphere following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, the headline could also signal a lament for that tragedy or a rallying call to stand firm against terrorism.This week, the meaning of “October Rain” – a song very few people have heard – became a moot question when newspapers in Israel reported that a song of that name had been chosen to represent the country in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest .Although the initial reports gave few details about the song, it…

Yale University will require standardized test scores for admission for students applying to enter the fall 2025 entering class, becoming the second Ivy League university to abandon the optional testing policies that had been widely adopted during the pandemic of Covid.Yale officials said in a statement Thursday that the shift to test-optional policies may have inadvertently hurt students from lower-income families whose test scores could have helped their chances.Although it will require standardized testing, Yale said its policy will be “flexible on testing,” allowing students to submit subject-based Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate test scores instead of SAT or ACT…

AT&T said Thursday it is working to fully restore its network after it was hit by a widespread outage for hours early Thursday that knocked out service to thousands of users across the United States.”Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service outages this morning,” AT&T said in a statement. “So far three-quarters of our network has been restored.”It was unclear how many customers were still affected or how widespread the issues remained.The outage, which affected people in cities including Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York, was first reported around 3:30 a.m. time Eastern time, and problems with cell service…

The hackers offered a menu of services, at varying prices.A local government in southwest China paid less than $15,000 to access the private website of Vietnam’s traffic police. Software that helped run disinformation campaigns and hack accounts on X cost $100,000. For $278,000 Chinese customers could get a bunch of personal information behind social media accounts on platforms like Telegram and Facebook.The deals, detailed in leaked documents, were part of the hacking tools and hidden data sold by a Chinese security firm called I-Soon, one of hundreds of venture firms backing China-funded aggressive hacking efforts. by the State. The project…